Lethal vs Non-Lethal

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I feel like the developers went too far in encouraging a non-lethal playstyle in this game. I like stealth as much as anyone but on my second run, I played a more aggressive approach and was disappointed by how much the game dissuaded me from doing so.

There is barely any benefit in using your lethal melee attacks. More XP is given for non-lethal, lethal is 10x louder, and unconscious enemies always stay down anyway. A quick drag behind something and they are never found and revived.

Worse part is this doesn't make any sense, enemies would be far more likely to make noise whilst being subdued non-lethally, whilst a blade to the neck or upper torso with a hand to their mouth would be silent. Most of Jensen's non-lethal melees look like they killed the guy anyway.

Stealth and strategy is DE HR's strong point. Enemy AI could use some work to make gunplay feel more satisfying should players choose this playstyle. Great game overall though.

FriendlyGamer posted...I feel like the developers went too far in encouraging a non-lethal playstyle in this game. I like stealth as much as anyone but on my second run, I played a more aggressive approach and was disappointed by how much the game dissuaded me from doing so.

There is barely any benefit in using your lethal melee attacks. More XP is given for non-lethal, lethal is 10x louder, and unconscious enemies always stay down anyway. A quick drag behind something and they are never found and revived.

Worse part is this doesn't make any sense, enemies would be far more likely to make noise whilst being subdued non-lethally, whilst a blade to the neck or upper torso with a hand to their mouth would be silent. Most of Jensen's non-lethal melees look like they killed the guy anyway.

Stealth and strategy is DE HR's strong point. Enemy AI could use some work to make gunplay feel more satisfying should players choose this playstyle. Great game overall though.

Yeah I agree, I kind of wish the developers had done more for the combat style of playing the game, I like the stealth combat more myself, and it's quite obvious this was the "main" way of playing, but since one of the "features" or whatever they seemed to highlight for this game was the ability to play using your own playstyle, I wish it had more of a balance to it.

Dead enemies can't get back up. Combat augments take less points (so less xp really doesn't matter). You can one hit kill almost everything in the game. At worst, two hits for anything that isn't a boss.

You also have an augment that kills everything in the immediate area.

Lethal is very overpowered if used properly. People just don't use it properly.

Even on lethal playthroughs, it is still a stealth game. You aren't supposed to be running and gunning, no matter what. The difference is that on a lethal playthrough, you should be taking out 2-3 enemies before the rest start firing at you, which makes winning fights through lethal means very easy.

The whole "getting less experience" thing doesn't matter. About 80% of the augments exist solely to help you stay out of combat. The difference is lethal is more twitch based and you can't use augments to make up for skill deficiencies compared with stealth augments.

I agree. You don't need as many augments on a lethal playthrough. As a gamer I want to make my character as OP as possible.

The thing most ignore, including myself, is that on a non lethal run you don't benefit from the lethal weapons in the game. Granted you do get to play with them in boss battles. That is such a small portion if the game. They removed this from the DLC by allowing you to KO the final boss.